البنت الصغيرة بتخاف من الكلب.

A rough Levantine pronunciation is:

il-bint iṣ-ṣghīre btkhāf min il-kalb

A few notes:

• البنت sounds like il-bint
• الصغيرة begins with a sun letter, so the l of ال is not pronounced separately
• بتخاف starts with a consonant cluster: bt-
• من may sound like min or a shorter mn, depending on the speaker

Pronunciation varies across Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and Palestine, so you may hear slightly different vowels.

In Arabic, adjectives usually come after the noun they describe.

So:

• البنت = the girl
• الصغيرة = the small/little

Together, البنت الصغيرة literally looks like the girl the-small, but in natural English it means the little girl.

This is normal Arabic word order for noun + adjective.

Because Arabic adjectives agree with the nouns they describe in definiteness.

So if the noun is definite:

• البنت = the girl

then the adjective must also be definite:

• الصغيرة = the little

That gives:

• البنت الصغيرة = the little girl

If the noun were indefinite, the adjective would also be indefinite:

• بنت صغيرة = a little girl

In Levantine Arabic, the prefix بـ often marks the present tense, especially for habitual, general, or ongoing actions.

So:

• بتخاف = she is afraid / she fears

This بـ is a very common colloquial Levantine feature. It is not a separate word; it is part of the verb form.

Because the subject is البنت (the girl), which is third person feminine singular.

In Levantine, the present-tense form for she is often بتـ...

So:

• هي بتخاف = she is afraid

Compare:

• هو بيخاف = he is afraid
• أنا بخاف = I am afraid
• إنتَ بتخاف = you (masculine singular) are afraid

So بتخاف matches البنت correctly.

Because the verb خاف in Arabic commonly takes the preposition من.

So:

• خاف من = to be afraid of

Word-for-word, من usually means from, but with this verb the whole expression means to fear / to be afraid of.

This is just how Arabic structures the idea. Many languages use different prepositions from English.

Literally, الكلب means the dog, because it has الـ, the definite article.

So:

• الكلب = the dog
• كلب = a dog / dog

In context, Arabic sometimes uses definiteness a little differently from English, but the basic grammar here is clearly definite: the dog.

This is because of sun letters and moon letters.

The word الصغيرة starts with ص, which is a sun letter. With sun letters, the l of الـ assimilates into the next consonant.

So الصغيرة is pronounced roughly like:

• iṣ-ṣghīre

not:

• al-saghira

But البنت and الكلب begin with ب and ك, which are moon letters, so the l sound stays:

• il-bint
• il-kalb

Yes. That is also very natural in Levantine.

There is a small nuance:

• بتخاف is a present-tense verb form
• خايفة is an active participle often used to describe a state

So:

• البنت الصغيرة بتخاف من الكلب can sound like the little girl is afraid of the dog / fears the dog
• البنت الصغيرة خايفة من الكلب can sound a bit more like the little girl is scared of the dog

In everyday speech, both can be used in very similar ways.

This word order is very natural and common:

• البنت الصغيرة بتخاف من الكلب

It starts with the subject, then the verb, then the prepositional phrase.

Arabic can sometimes change word order for emphasis or style, but for a learner, this sentence is an excellent standard pattern:

• subject + adjective + verb + preposition phrase

So yes, other word orders may be possible in context, but this version is clear, normal, and safe to use.

This is Levantine-style colloquial Arabic, not full Modern Standard Arabic.

The biggest clue is بتخاف with the present marker بـ, which is typical of Levantine speech.

Also, colloquial Levantine normally does not use the full case endings that Modern Standard Arabic would have.

So this sentence is exactly the kind of everyday spoken Arabic a Levantine learner should expect to hear.